2015 Guide to Social Media Platforms

The social media landscape is ever-changing. 2014 in particular has seen many major changes to the top social media platforms, for better and for worse. As a leading social media agency, we strive to stay on top of any and all updates made to social media platforms, no matter how small or large they may be. Most networks have updated their profile designs, their algorithms, and their advertising options. In this guide, we provide an overview of what you need to know to succeed on the top social media platforms today, and throughout 2015.
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General Tips for Social Media Success

Before we get into specifics about the top social media platforms for 2015, we’d like to share some general strategies that apply to any social media network:

Fill out information for your social media profiles, pages, groups, and other properties completely. Each field offers the chance to promote a specific aspect of your business.
Take advantage of visual profile elements, such as cover photos, but keep in mind that Facebook does not allow you to put messaging on your cover photo that could be conveyed as advertising.
Follow your best competitors on social media when looking for inspiration for your social media strategy.
Update your profiles, pages, and groups regularly. No one wants to become a follower or fan of an inactive social property.
Cross-promote posts from one social media network to another to get fans from one network to become fans on another.
Look for ways to convert social media followers into mailing list subscribers.

Now, let’s dive into advice for specific social networks!

Facebook

Facebook is still the most popular social network worldwide with /1.35 billion monthly active users, making it an ideal social media platform for businesses to use to reach their customers. Here is what you need to know about the basics of Facebook in 2015.

Main Advantage

Aside from audience size, Facebook offers the most personalized targeted advertising options. If you have a product specifically for married women in Los Angeles with children, you can target them with Facebook advertising.

Profiles, Pages, and Groups

On Facebook, you can market your business through your personal profile, Facebook business page, and groups. Note that you cannot create a personal profile for your business. But you can use your personal profile to link to your business page, share updates from your business page, and participate in groups relevant to your business.

Essential elements of your Facebook page include the cover photo, profile photo, short description of your business, and website link. Local businesses will also add their local address, hours of operation, type of business and phone number.

Engagement Options

You can use your personal profile to interact with other profiles, pages, and groups by posting updates on a wall or engaging with a like, comment, and share. You can also use Facebook as your Facebook page to interact with other pages by posting updates to their wall or engaging with a like, comment, and share.

Private messages can be sent between Facebook profiles and to pages from personal profiles. Facebook pages can only reply to messages from profiles.

Websites using the Facebook comment system will allow comments on articles and blog posts using a Facebook personal profile or page. This strategy is a great way to get exposure for your Facebook page outside of Facebook itself.

Reach

In 2014, it continued to become harder for businesses to reach their customers due to declining organic reach and /removing overly promotional posts from the newsfeeds of fans. Businesses have been finding more inventive ways to circumvent Facebook’s attack on Facebook page reach through the use of personal profiles and groups.

Facebook groups have been particularly beneficial – while there are not official stats as of yet, anyone who belongs to a Facebook group knows that posts from groups fill their newsfeed. Hence, the more people from your company that you can get active in Facebook groups, the more people you can reach with your business message. The key isn’t to be overly self-promotional, but just to be helpful. Facebook groups can be especially effective for local businesses that belong to local business referral and word of mouth groups.

In addition to utilizing Facebook groups, businesses that want to reach their fans and target audiences are using Facebook Ads. Marketers now refer to Facebook as a “pay to play” network.

Advertising

Facebook’s advertising platform allows advertisers to create ad campaigns based on specific goals. These goals go beyond post engagement with items like building fans, website traffic, conversions, app installs, event attendance, and video views.

Features previously reserved for users of the Facebook Ads Power Editor have made their way into the standard ads manager, including the ability to create custom audiences from email lists and website visitors (also known as remarketing or retargeting).

Analytics

Facebook page owners can use Facebook Insights to analyze data about their fans and post engagement. Insights will also show you basic demographics about fans, where visitors to your page originate from, and what tabs on your page they visit most.

Major Changes

Facebook revamped the design of Facebook pages, which moved the about information, custom tabs / apps, and media into the left sidebar. They also removed the option for Facebook pages to use “like-gating”, where pages created content only accessible to those who like the page.

Facebook Tips for 2015

So how can businesses succeed on Facebook in 2015? Here are some top tips.

Connect your business page to your personal profile by adding it as your current employer. This way, visitors to your profile will be able to connect with your business. Encourage employees at your company to do the same to reach even more potential friends.
Join relevant Facebook groups that your ideal customers have joined. If none exist, create them.
Create cover photos that inspire people to click on the photos to follow a call to action linked in the photo’s description.
Encourage people to get notifications once they like your page, so they don’t miss your updates.
Use the Facebook Like Button or Box on your website to get more fans without them having to leave your website.
Post lots of updates to your Facebook page. /Studies have shown the more updates you publish, the more organic reach your page will get simply because the volume of updates will ultimately reach more fans.
Skip the boost post option to increase engagement for posts on your Facebook wall and use the main ads manager for more targeting options.
Get the most out of your Facebook advertising budget by focusing on website conversion goals as opposed to just driving traffic to a web page.
Create video content for your business and upload it directly to Facebook. Video exposure in the newsfeed has been much higher than photo, text, and link-based status updates.
Don’t just focus on growing your Facebook fans. Focus on converting fans into email list subscribers so you can reach them directly in their inbox.

Twitter

Twitter is another must for businesses. There are 284 million monthly active users sending 500 million tweets per day. Here is what you need to know about the basics of Twitter in 2015.